No Cancer

I don't have cancer, according to the oncologist.  There's nothing wrong with me (except the usual everything).

I feel good, am relatively happy (because happiness is a choice) and enjoying the summer.  I could have done without that month of wondering why I had to go see an oncologist, but...all is well.

Cheers!

The Weekend

It was hot here!  In the 90's!

I went to a playwriting festival here in town, called JAW, which stands for Just Add Water.  Professionally staged readings of new work from new and established playwrights.  I also attended a workshop on dramaturgy and a play writing workshop by Will Eno

which I enjoyed.  Also was at the reading of Eno's new play GNIT, which is sort of a modern retelling of Ibsens' Peer Gynt.

We had a really sad death in the Oregon Bear community over the weekend, with the swift, unexpected and just wrong death of DJ Sam Storicks, a young, handsome, extremely witty man who was liked by just about everyone.  So sad...still don't know what happened to him, but I'm really sad that he died.

Tomorrow is my appointment with the oncologist.  I'm not very worried, though, I really don't think I have cancer or anything very bad.  I do have an enlarged spleen and liver - the results of 22 years of hiv meds, I guess. Wish me luck!

And have a great week, yo.  Uncle Mark loves ya.

Much

So I've given all my blood to the vampires phlebotomists.at the Kaiser lab and I've had an ultrasound.  I guess I'll find something out the end of this month about my elevated LDH levels.

I haven't been thinking much about THAT, but I have been thinking about Joe Manganiello, who plays Alcide this season on True Blood. 

I've also been taking surreptitious photos of guys on the bus with my iPhone, which is a fun little hobby.  Here's one: 

Looks like he spotted me.  More pictures of unsuspecting hotties on the bus on my Flickr page

Been out to Rooster Rock nude beach and Sauvie Island as well.  I like to run around nekkid in the sunshine. 

Just kind of in a summer slump...peaceful, mellow and lying by the fan.  Not a lot of energy or social life going on right now.  I'll be very happy when I hear that I DON'T have some horrible kind of cancer.

Not Much

Not too much going on, which is why I haven't blogged, I guess.  I have found that it's dangerous to talk about your life when there is nothing much happening, because I tend to talk about things that don't need to be on the web, but...

My new friend John is a playwright and we have been chatting about our respective works.  He is definitely a man of action, and, within weeks of moving to Portland is having a reading of one of his plays.  He's asked me to read the lead role, so I'm looking forward to that, and to joining the same playwriting group that he has hooked up with.  My play is in need of major re-writing, I have determined, and so I am trying to get it together to do that.


Just don't have a lot of interest in much, lately, since the loss of my truck.  Had some identity theft, so I can't get a loan to get a new vehicle until that is cleared up. Speaking with a lawyer to try and get some help with that.

Most nights I am home, watching TV. 

Also having big fear about a phone call I got from an oncologist's office....apparently my doctor wants me to go and see one.  So I guess I may have cancer or some blood disease.  Makes sense, as my energy level is extremely low these days.

BUT, anyhoo, The Lion King is still roaring through our ticket office, and I got my new CD of Phillip Glass's Orphee which was just released.  I recommend it highly! 

SO...a bit of a gloomy post, but...it's summer, and I am relatively content.  The weather is still weird and rainy, but it should be nice soon.   I just need to get OUT OF THE HOUSE, and I also need to get laid. 

Oy, the weather!

It rains, the heat beats down, then it rains again.  The weather here is a trip.

My shoulders and back are sunburned from nude sunbathing on Sauvie Island on Saturday.  I went with my lovely new friends Rick and John.  We had a good time, ate a picnic lunch and soaked up some vitamin D.  There were lots and lots of people there, and the river was very high.  We, however, were not high.  But we were content.

Today, though, it's like monsoon season.  Hard, cold rain and hail pounding the pavement.   Even so, there are people in shorts jogging.  So weird.

Extremely busy at work with the Opera season, The new Broadway season, the Lion King opening tomorrow...it's crazy-busy time.  I don't mind it.

The Place It All Rises To

This is a piece of short fiction I wrote which was published in December 2009, in an anthology entitled "More Than a Book".

The Place It All Rises To

Manuel gazes up at the heavy, ornate wooden doors and smiles.  Taking a breath and crossing his arms over his chest, he leans forward, propelling himself through the doors:  Out of the heat, away from the world.  Once inside, the doors swing closed behind him, and he finds himself standing in a silent, crushed-velvet, golden room.

He has never been inside this building, and yet he is home.  He steps out of what remains of the shoes he has been given - this is, after all, holy ground - and steps forward onto the red carpet that stretches all the way down the wooden floor to the encrusted platform ahead.

Manuel makes his way past the empty pews, past the stained-glass eyes that weep and roll heavenward  and, mercifully, do not judge or regard him.  There is no judgment here today, just a peaceful quiet and the competing smells of vanilla candles and lemon Pledge.

Well, no, not only those.  There is something else here; Manuel has heard about it and it is what has drawn him from his cardboard shelter, three buses away.  Now there it is, directly ahead.  A shock of pleasure courses through him and he jumps a little, almost squeaking aloud.  Not in church,  he hears his mother's voice saying, so Manuel shushes himself, but allows a grin to overtake his face.

Skirting the altar, Manuel stops for a moment and buckles his tired, aging knees to genuflect.  Groaning up to his height again, he makes his way across the chancel - knowing he is not meant to be there - and stands before the Grand Object, shiny and black like patent leather.  Sucking in a deep breath, he sits on the stool, which welcomes his weight with an audible koosh.

It all feel automatic, not as though more than fifteen years have passed since he last played a piano.  His dirty toes find the cold, smooth pedals and his fingers immediately play the warm-up phrase from Rachmaninoff his mother taught him to always begin with:  C, D, A, C, G.

Manuel plays and plays, fingers dancing with the ivory keys.  Melodies arise from his memory, and he begins to laugh.  He decides in that moment that he will play this piano until someone comes along and stops him, until the lights dim and the cloud of joy he is sitting in blows away.

At around one-thirty p.m., he will be found, half on and half off the piano bench, having completed his own welcome march into heaven.  Father Purlton will discover Manuel's body, a small brown blight on the shining altar floor, head tilted and unnaturally gray eyes a color in concert with the peeling, chipped pillars which Manuel's eyes seem to follow as they stretch up, all the way to the glimmering apse above his still form to the place it all rises to:  Music, incense and tear-stained prayers, both the spoken kind and the silent.

The Place It All Rises To by Mark A. Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 

copyright 2009 by Mark A. Brown

Furloughed!

Today is my last day of work until June 7th.  We are having our summer furlough, part of our "cost-cutting measures".  I work for a nonprofit arts organization, so...whatever.

I am hoping for SUN next week during the furlough so that I can lay by the pool and read, but it's not looking too good for that.  SO I guess I'll load up on movies!  And chocolate.  Probably do some photography.

I think Shawn should come visit me that week.